"I'm starting to get to the point where I realize this job is not going to be forever," Garner told people. "Not in the all-encompassing every meal, every moment, every day way that I have loved for the last thirteen years. It's going to shift. But there's beauty in how it works in episodes."

Garner said that when she arrives home from a fancy photo shoot, her kids object to her glam get-up and want their mother back.

"They'll look at me and say, 'Can you wash your face? Can you put your hair in a ponytail and put your glasses and sweats on?'" Garner said. "And I see the compliment in that. They just want me to look like Mom."

Last year the magazine rebranded its "Most Beautiful" issue as "The Beautiful Issue," to make clear, its editors said, that it's not a contest.